


Push Me Far Away

by AniseNalci



Category: Elite (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 11:16:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16428344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AniseNalci/pseuds/AniseNalci
Summary: He had known for a while now, that Nadia found him attractive.ORHe goes from thinking of her as a bet and a challenge, to a person he cares greatly about, but real life gets in the way. Angst, somewhat unrequited Nadia/Guzmán.





	Push Me Far Away

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Urges by Lastlings.

 

She started out as a bet.

It’s not one of his finest moments. Lu hated her more than he does, he knew, because she threatened Lu’s place as the best, the brightest in their class at Las Encinas. And Nadia did (does) eclipse her, with her intellect, her dogged determination to succeed, her desperation to change the world.

At that time, Nadia also sickened him, with her holier-than-thou attitude.

_Who was she, after all, to look down on them, when she had so much less than they did?_

He didn’t understand why all his lines fall flat, why she was so impervious to his charm, to his honeyed words, manufactured precisely to make any girl to fall for him. After all, it worked for the many other girls he’d come across.

Perhaps she really was that saintly and virginal, he thought, before dismissing that thought with a scoff. No one was that pure in this day and age. She was just the same as the many other girls who he’d wooed before, and she would end up just the same way.

The school project was an interesting experiment. He didn’t understand necessarily how working with her on a stupid project will further his goal, but Lu seemed to think it a good opportunity, and Lu usually was right.

The problem with the stupid project was that, despite being partners, she seemed to avoid him as steadfastly as ever. It was as if she was willing to sacrifice her grades to avoid being next to him. _Impossible,_ he thought to himself, and on confronting her, and showing her attempt at creating a haphazard profile of himself to Martin, he was pleased to know that he was right. She coloured, before agreeing to work with him at his house.

 

* * *

 

They are very similar.

He doesn’t know if he’s trying to convince her or him. Back then, during the school project, he was trying to convince her: she’s a dutiful, respectful daughter, she’s responsible, she believes in God. And so did he.

She scoffed at the last one, and he faltered when he realised that she had caught him _in flagrante delicto_ with Lu in the girls’ showers. Nevertheless, he persisted, stripping his shirt off to show her his crucifix.

She had a comeback for that one.

He didn’t miss what happened after that. Despite looking at him with a straight face, he couldn’t fail to notice her looking down and to the side, almost as though to avoid looking at him.

That had happened when they first cast eyes on each other, when he got out of the pool to see her, with the other two newbies. He’d stared them down with a smirk, in an attempt to intimidate them. The boys, they didn’t look away. She did.

And then, after Martin gave reiterated the importance of the project, and she approached him, she turned around the second he stripped naked, determined not to look at him.

Guzmán was no fool. He could work with attraction.

 

* * *

 

He knew where she lived, and thought that if he could appeal to her filial piety, he’d be able to find Marina. After all, she would surely understand his desperation to pull Marina away from that scene.

He was right.

Somehow in the course of the night of the skinny kid’s party, he lost track of Marina, who refused to answer any of his calls, only to wind up with Nadia glued to his side.

“I want to swim in your swimming pool.”

As far as erotic propositions went, he’d heard better. He also couldn’t believe his ears. Nadia, willingly going with him somewhere? To his house? She _had_ to know what that sounded like.

Yet she was all smiles and innocence.

He reached home, only to find Marina browsing her phone, appearing bored. She didn’t seem to realise he came home with someone, but he was careful. After all, Marina and Nadia seemed to have struck up a strange sort of friendship. (He later learnt that it was Marina’s invitation to her party that guaranteed Nadia’s attendance during Marina’s coming out party.)

He then lost her again –

_What was with him and losing girls?_

– But not for long. He went to the swimming pool – the most obvious place she’d be – and saw her, fully clothed, wading in the pool, her headscarf falling off.

It was incredibly uncharacteristic of her, but he wasn’t complaining, until her saw her close-up. Wide, dilated pupils, with a vacant, glazed expression… She’d been drugged, and Goddamnit, he was a lot of things but he wasn’t a monster…

At the end of the night, knowing Nadia was safe at home, he could rest in peace, but before that, he was going to take a long, cold shower.

 

* * *

 

He should have been kicking himself at the thought of having lost his bet with Lucrecia, but strangely, he felt at peace with it.

In retrospect, he should have realised that this was the first spiral downwards into a position he really never thought he would be in.

 

* * *

 

Nadia always knew what to say. She was smart, she was witty, and she didn’t need him.

It was beginning to frustrate him. They had fallen into an easy camaraderie, and she finally found him worth befriending (it was like Everest, trying to win a smile from her; he’d never moved at such a glacial pace before, and all that only for mere friendship). Yet he couldn’t blame her. His family’s secrets kept being unearthed at the most inconvenient time, and then there was Lu.

Lu, who’d always been an extension of him. Lu, driven and ambitious and from his same circle. She was so much easier to be with. She was familiar.

And yet it was Nadia to whom his thoughts would run to.

 

* * *

 

He had known for a while now, that Nadia found him attractive. He had also come to the realisation that she would never let herself fall for him. At first, before he made his face-heel-turn, it was because she thought him an awful person (he still was, but he was learning to be better, he hoped). Later, he realised it was because despite their friendship, she was still the ever-dutiful daughter, and what was it she had once said? The perfect son-in-law for her parents would pray five times a day, facing Mecca. Culturally, they were far too different.

He had never wanted to be so much more than just friends with another girl. It was a foreign sensation. Was it the challenge that drove him? Was he still hung up on that? It couldn’t be, could it? She’d been clear that there would never be anything more than just that.

That day, before the exams, however…

She’d willingly hugged him for the first time, after the visit to the prison. She was feminine under the loose, baggy clothing, he knew, but nothing quite prepared him for how warm she was. The hug took him by surprise, but he wasn’t complaining, and it was dangerous. Her smaller, softer hands seemed to sear through, branding his skin from where she embraced him. He buried his face in her neck, a gesture which would not have been entirely innocent, were it not for her headscarf shielding her neck. He could smell the faint scent of perfume anointing the delicate pulse there. Her face was so close to his, and if it were any other girl, he would have moved forward to capture her lips with his.

She seemed to realise this, and hesitated as well. A second, and another, and she loosened her grip on him, as though trying to collect herself.

It took a great amount of self-control to draw back, and he felt the loss keenly. Yet he couldn’t help the goofy face he’d had for the rest of the day.

 

* * *

 

The day of the exams, her father stormed in, looking like a volcano about to erupt. Whatever the Principal had said went down badly, and when she outed Omar…

Guzmán had never been one for picking up cues, but even he knew when she’d gone too far. Ander had stood up as well, of course, but as usual, it was Nadia who defused the situation, dragging her father away.

She would never come back to Las Encinas.

If he were in love with her, he would despair of it all.

And he was, so he did.

 

* * *

 

Fact: Nadia would have more opportunities in Las Encinas than any other school in Spain. From Spain, she could study on scholarship in the USA, and make valuable networking connections that would serve her well, if she wanted to become a diplomat.

So what if she didn’t win this year? There was always next year, and she was smart enough to do so.

Fact: Nadia’s father would not let her come to Las Encinas, not while he was around. He was a proud man, almost to the point of foolishness.

(Like he was, but he tried not to dwell too long on the similarities between him and Mr. Shanaa. The less said of it, the better.)

Fact: Neither of them had a future together.

And that was the hardest part of it. He loved her, but she… she was an enigma to him. Her feelings were less certain. It had taken her nearly four months to warm up to the idea of him as a friend. She was very religious, and he had a feeling that no matter how progressive she was when it came to Omar and Ander, Nadia herself was very conservative in the sense that she still kept up with the prayers, and wore the headscarf regularly outside, the only exception being during school hours, and that _had_ to be a hard decision for her to have made those many months ago. She wouldn’t ever consider marriage with anyone outside of the religion, much less romance with him, a semi-lapsed Catholic with a less than stellar track-record.

Fact: Nadia was desperate for a good education. A good education which would be readily available at Las Encinas, but which she would give up to keep the family peace.

And that was entirely unfair.

That thought was what drove him to accost Mr. Shanaa in the hallways. He couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing Nadia again, but what was worse would be if Nadia failed to live up to her potential, and never achieved her dreams.

If the price of Nadia achieving her dreams was that he never talk to her again, he’d gladly pay that price. Especially if it meant he could still see her, everyday. From afar, true, but she would still be in his life, or in orbit, at the very least. It was better than nothing. Seeing her succeed would be worth it.

He remembered overhearing her say _I need that scholarship._ And in all honesty, he could not have thought anyone more deserving than she was. Even though Marina – who won it – was his sister, who he loved with all of his heart (but they were on the outs, not on speaking terms).

Marina’s speech was resigned, and as she spoke, his blood boiled with the thought that Marina was going to leave them all behind, and this was goodbye. He only half-believed Samuel when he claimed Marina was going to run off with Nano. If Marina could forget her family for a hot second and run away with the first hoodlum she met, well, surely he was still excusable for thinking of the conversation he had with Mr. Shanaa, and a pair of dark eyes in a pretty face, whose mouth, usually lined in deep determination, would form an upwards smirk whenever he was addressed.

 

* * *

 

If there was one thing Marina’s death taught him, it was that life was too short.

And as he mourned, and grieved, he wished she was there. She always knew what to say.

But he had promised.

Lu was there when he turned around. If he hadn’t promised, and he called for Nadia, begging her to come be with him, would she have done so? Would she have soothed him, held him tightly in her arms, just as Lu did?

 _No_ , he told himself. She had no future with him, and he didn’t want her to risk the dreams she had for him anyway. And she would never let herself fall for him. He didn’t want her to, anyway, not while he was like this. He didn’t deserve her, and he probably never would.

The tears fell faster now, as Lu held him tightly. She thought he was grieving, and she would be right, but there was so much to grieve for; Marina, his family, Nadia, and for a future that he could only dream of, this future would never be realised. The main players in that future act would probably never return. Marina was dead, his family torn apart, their foundation rocked to the core and ripped apart at the seams from the myriad of events that had passed since then; and Nadia would be better off without him.

He whispered a silent prayer. With all hope lost, it was all he could afford to do.

 

* * *

 

_**Fin** _

**Author's Note:**

> I am trash for Elite and for the Shanaas. Kudos/comment if you like. Otherwise, play with me over at Tumblr. 
> 
> (Honestly cannot decide if I want Nadia/Guzmán endgame, but I certainly want more shiptease. S2 has got really high expectations to live up to, not just from shipping perspective, but everything.)


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